Getty LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers and Kawhi Leonard of the LA Clippers.
Despite their ugly start to the regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers have gotten themselves in a position to make the playoffs. But with just a couple of games left in the regular season, they don’t have much room for error, as the Western Conference is tightly packed.
On Wednesday night, they missed a golden opportunity to elevate their standing in the West, losing to the LA Clippers. Despite it being the second night of a back-to-back, both LeBron James and Anthony Davis played huge minutes. After the game, head coach Darvin Ham provided an injury update on both players.
“They’ll go through their normal post-game recovery and check in with the medical [staff], but for all intents and purposes, they’re fine,” Ham said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel.
Kawhi Leonard played over 40 minutes for the Clippers, but according to Ham, the Lakers weren’t able to do the same with James and Davis.
“So, there was no way that we were going to be able to do that, and our medical staff wasn’t going to allow us to do that,” Ham said. “So, they did what they had to do to get a win, and we did what we had to do to give us give ourselves a chance to win not only tonight but to keep our players in good standing health-wise going forward.”
Davis played well against the Clippers. He finished the night with 17 points, 11 rebounds, three assists, one steal, and two blocks on 7-of-14 shooting from the field.
As for James, he ended the game with 33 points, eight rebounds, and seven assists on 13-of-20 shooting from the floor and 4-of-6 shooting from beyond the three-point arc.
LeBron James Name-Drops D’Angelo Russell
Meanwhile, after the game, James spoke about the difficulty of establishing team chemistry, noting that both he and D’Angelo Russell have missed time.
“Obviously, since the trade [deadline], we’ve been playing some good basketball,” James said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “But the one thing we’ve been lacking a little bit is just the consistency of our lineups. And obviously, I was out for four weeks, and D-Lo has kind of been in and out. But for the majority of it, guys have definitely stepped up. So, with these last two games, you definitely want to see if we can figure something out as far as our chemistry. But at the end of the day, we’ve still been playing good ball. So, not thinking about that too much.”
Darvin Ham Praises Rui Hachimura
After the Lakers’ recent win over the Utah Jazz, Ham showed love to Rui Hachimura and the rest of LA’s depth.
“It’s always good when you have multiple sources of offensive production,” Ham said via the NBA Interviews YouTube channel. “Whether it’s Dennis [Schroder] getting downhill, Austin [Reaves] doing what he’s doing, and AD [ Davis]. Even Rui. Rui has great segments out there when he puts us on his back for four, five, or seven possessions and gets stuff done for us. Everybody’s just chipping in and moving the ball, and everybody’s participating. Not just with scoring but just doing their part in terms of running to the correct spacing and playing with a purpose, screening with a purpose, cutting with a purpose, and just being ready to make a quick decision once the ball is swung to them.”
